9-10 pm – I have a few contractions, maybe three, nothing I
can’t talk through. We had friends over
and I remember thinking, “Huh, that one felt different,” but still continuing
with the conversation.

10-11 pm - Our friends leave and the contractions
continue. I time them from 10:30 to 11,
just to see what was officially happening. They continue to be irregular, anywhere from 8-10 minutes apart. We call A’s mom and warn her to be on alert
and keep the phone on, just in case this is it.

11 pm - I head upstairs to take a shower. I figure either I will be all rosy smelling
for the hospital staff or the shower will relax the contractions right out of
me (I’ve heard tell). They’re still
there, still irregular when we climb into bed at 11:30. Strongly in denial, I tell A that if I
can sleep through them, I’d better since we would probably be having a baby
sometime tomorrow.

September 12 - 39 weeks, 6 days

Midnight – I get up and get dressed. There is no sleeping through these
contractions and they’re coming regularly at 6-8 minutes apart. It was good that I drank a bunch of caffeine
with dinner since I won’t be getting much sleep tonight. We give the cat his Prozac, make sure the
girls’ bags are packed, get my last minute stuff together.

At this point my assumption is that I’ll be laboring through
the night and have the baby sometime in the morning. After all, my contractions are 6-8 minute apart and our instructions are to
call when they’re 5 minutes apart. I
figure we have a few hours. I am wrong.

1 am - I have 4
contractions in a row that are 2 minutes apart. I’m skeptical that this labor is moving that quickly and that we
should call the midwife. I want to wait
and see if they lengthen back out again. A asks me, “Do you want to call the midwife or should I?” It’s a good thing he stands firm against my
wishy-washiness. Our midwife is already
at the hospital and tells us to come on in.

1:30 – My in-laws arrive. My father-in-law meets me as I’m coming out the door and jokes, “I guess
you won’t be coming over tomorrow morning!” I growl at him.

A few minutes later my mother-in-law comes over to the car
where I’m bent over, breathing and moaning through a contraction (for some
reason A had locked the car and then Lucy set off the car alarm. Sorry, neighbors!). She rubs my back and tells me that she loves
me. I bite her head off and spit it
out.

I should add that my sister-in-law gave me some great advice
from her midwife: moan with vowels. So
I did a lot of “Ooooooooh”ing and “Ahhhhhh”ing to get through the
contractions. The idea is that they’re
“open” vowels and encourage you to relax (sort of) and open your pelvis. It keeps you from getting into the
pain-fear-tension cycle. It was extremely
helpful, although I maintain that the chorus of “fuck, fuck, fuck” that I said
last time is vowel-friendly as well.

1:35 – We run into a long, slow train. A told me later that he was getting very
nervous because he remembers how I was at the end of my labor with E and L~I
wanted silence, no one talking to me, no one touching me~and I was like that
now. He was seriously worried about the
baby coming in the car. I was mainly
focusing on breathing and moaning through the contractions, but when I started
feeling cold and shaky, the thought “Am I in transition?” flashed through my
mind. It was followed directly by “If
this isn’t transition, I’m getting a fucking epidural.”

(Obviously that feeling of “there’s no way I can do this!”
meant that I was in transition. If you
decide to forgo drugs, remember that. That overwhelming feeling that you can’t make it one second longer means
you’re almost done dilating!)

1:45 – Construction. There is construction on every road that takes us through downtown to
the hospital. If my contractions hadn’t
been 2 minutes apart and the roads incredibly bumpy, it would have been funny
(“Look, kids, Parliment! Big
Ben!”). As it was, I had one minute of
recovery/give A directions time for every one minute long contraction.

We finally arrive at the emergency department and a very
nice security guard starts asking if I’m in labor and then eyes me closely and
offers valet parking. The ER triage
nurses ask how far apart my contractions are and then instruct me DON’T PUSH. We sit for a few minutes waiting for the OB
person to come and get us. I remember
watching a man, not in any distress, amble up to the triage desk and
announce, “I’m feeling short of breath!” and I am so glad I don’t work ER
anymore. The OB nurse arrives to bring
me upstairs. We’re followed by another
pregnant woman who doesn’t look full-term and is probably not in labor. She is walking and chatting with her
friends. We quickly leave her in the
dust. I learn later that I made
everyone nervous with my focusing and “one-cheeking” it. With each contraction I would lift my butt
up in the chair; I just couldn’t stay seated. I was trying to make room for a baby to come out, I guess.

A little after 2 am – We arrive on the OB floor and it’s
decided that I don’t need a triage room and they wheel me directly to a labor
and delivery room. It’s my one minute
respite from contractions so I climb into bed and gesture for A to undress
me. My nurse comes in and hooks up the
baby to the monitor and checks me. Suddenly there are 2 more nurses in the room and they are breaking down
the bed and pulling out all their delivery supplies. My nurse told me later that all she felt was the bulging amniotic
sack and she was worried that it would break and I would deliver immediately. It didn’t help when I told her that I felt
like I had to poop with each contraction.

I grunt, “Beta strep positive” at her because I still expect
to get an IV and a half-hour infusion of antibiotics before I deliver. Obviously, I’m out of my mind.

My midwife appears. I immediately ask for an epidural and she looks surprised, but says okay
and tells someone to call anesthesia. She checks me and then says consolingly, “Oh honey, you’re not going to
make it. You can push with your next
contraction.” She tells the nurse I’m 9
cm and 0 station. I start pushing. This is the part of the story where I have
to sing the praises of my midwife. One
of my huge regrets with E and L’s birth is the pushing stage. My OB wanted me to push for X number of
seconds at a time and I could never do it. I remember apologizing for my pushing and generally feeling crappy about
the job I was doing. It was not like
that this time. She used her fingers to
guide me where to push and reminded me to keep my chin on my chest. Otherwise, I was left to push when I wanted to
and for as long as I wanted. I felt
empowered and I will always be grateful to her for that. No one was counting and everyone was
encouraging in a non-overbearing way. I
felt supported and guided, not bossed around. The midwife and nurses were there to help me, but I was
delivering this baby. I cannot
overstate how awesome this feeling was.

After a few pushes, my midwife says, “Oh, this baby has a
lot of hair!” and I ask to see. They
pull out the mirror and I love being able to watch. I think it was the culmination of the empowerment I felt. I push a couple more times, more forcefully,
I think, because I could see my progress, and then I feel that blasted ring of
fire. Damn, that hurts.

2:20 am – the nurse asks, “Do you want to break her water?”
and suddenly I hear a very audible POP! and fluid gushes down my legs. Everyone laughs at the irony. Well, I don’t laugh, but I can appreciate
the irony in retrospect. Later I asked
A if he heard my water break, too, and he did. Apparently it’s a pretty loud sound.

2:30 am - The exact time of her birth. I finally get her head out and this is the only place where
the midwife tells me I have to keep pushing~she had to get her shoulder
out. I push and out she pops. It is amazing how the pain is instantly gone
and the relief just washes over me. Someone asks, “What do you have, Dad?” and A told me later that he
thought, “Well, those look like testicles but there’s no penis. Why are they putting me on the spot?” It turns out that it’s just swollen labia
and we have our third little girl. I
hear them asking A if it’s a boy or girl and I think, “I don’t care. I don’t care because it’s over!” I am so glad to not be in labor that for a
minute I really didn’t care to know the sex.

Someone says, “That’s a BIG baby!” and I am holding her on
my chest and saying hello. She’s moving
and crying so I am immediately relieved. They warm her up with blankets and
suction her a couple times. The
amniotic fluid was clear, but she did poop right as she was coming out
(terminal meconium) and needed just a little help clearing her lungs. I eagerly hand her over because I’m dying to
know how much she weighs. A takes a
picture of the scale reading 10 lbs 1 oz and I crow about how I was right! (There’s little I love more in life than
being right. I’m petty that way.) They give her some blow-by oxygen, just to
pink her up a little. Initial Apgars
are 8 and 9.

I have a second degree tear, the same as I did with E and
L. My midwife is massaging my stomach,
advising me that she’s “going to have to be mean” and finally has the nurse
give me a shot of pitocin. She sews me
up while C is having her stuff done: bracelets, weight, length, etc.

The nurses change my bedding and then we’re left alone
together. I nurse C and after a bit of
encouragement, she latches on and sucks a dozen times. Woo-hoo for the
full-term baby with a suck reflex! Because she’s LGA (large for gestational age), they have to check her
blood sugar a few times. It’s low once
and I’m encouraged to nurse her frequently.

After a couple hours, I’m cleared to take a shower. Upon standing, I have that bizarre feeling
of all my organs moving back into place after being shoved who-knows-where for
the last few months. I hear A calling
out as I’m in the bathroom, “Hey, I’m only holding one baby here! Where’s the other one?” We make this joke multiple times over the
next day and we’re still doing it. It
doesn’t stop being funny to us.

5:30 am – We’re moved to a recovery room. The nurses found out that I am also a nurse
in that hospital and changed my room assignment to the “nicer” unit. It’s not quite the brotherhood of police
officers, but we do take care of each other. Our new nurse makes the appropriate cooing noises about how cute C is
(even though she’s quite swollen and bruised) and we doze a while before the
day starts.

Wednesday is full of lots of phone calls and re-telling of
the birth story. Since our pediatrician
doesn’t come to this hospital, we see a doctor on the hospital peds
service. They draw some labs on C to
rule out sepsis, because her white blood cell count is high, even though the
chance of infection is low. Infants
that become sick with beta strep have a 10-20% mortality rate and that is not
something I want to mess around with. I
watch her carefully for signs of sepsis, but she continues to nurse well and
starts peeing/pooping with aplomb.

Later that day E and L come to visit. They are so! excited! to meet their new baby
sister. They crawl all over my bed and
hold and kiss her. C starts to cry when
L is holding her and oh, you should have seen her face fall. “She’s mad at me!” she sobbed and didn’t
want to hold her again. This has
happened one more time since then and I’m trying to be careful to only have her
hold the baby when the baby is happy or sleeping. Poor kid. I miss my big
girls so much and A misses me and C. It’s hard to be split as a family and I am starting to see the appeal of
a homebirth with my own shower, my family around me, and my own bed. I can’t wait to get home and away from the
hustle and bustle of the hospital. The
separation from my family sucks.

That night A is home with the girls and I am trying to
remember how to take care of an infant. I quickly remember why we never used the hospital bassinett~it doesn’t
work. C and I snuggle close and doze in
between nursings. I don’t know how NOT
to cosleep with a newborn! At home, the
crib attached to our bed is being used as a storage device for diapers and
wipes, not to house an infant. She is
sleeping right next to me and is content.

Her 24-hour post birth weight has dropped to 9 lbs 9
oz. Five days later, she’ll be up to 9
lbs 13 oz at the pediatrician’s office.

This recovery has been so much better than with E and
L. I wasn’t as freaked out by my
post-partum body as before. I am not as
sore (although my pelvis is still separated and that’s annoying). Monday, 5 days post-birth, I did laundry,
took E and L to their first dentist appointment, took C to her pediatrician
appointment, went grocery shopping, and made dinner. I’m tired, but it’s not the same as before or even the same
exhaustion of a full-term pregnancy.

Mood wise, I vacillate between feelings of euphoria at our
family (3 girls! how freaking cool!) and despair at the thought of A going back to work (3 girls! what the hell am I going to do?!). Sunday we were all ready to go to church and
A and I both thought the other one had the keys and we ended up locked out of
our house. I was so upset. It required such an effort to get all of us
up and ready that to mess it up with something so careless was very
demoralizing. I think I will have to
cut back my standards (again!) or else go out of my mind. I had periods of time where I couldn’t keep
up when I had 2 kids, what makes me think I’ll do better with three? Today L asked if I’d snuggle her on the
couch and I folded the laundry first. I
need to get my priorities in line if I’m going to make this work. Snuggle daughter > laundry. Got it.

For the record, this was an awesome birth. It would have been nice to get the
antibiotics in, but everything else was great. Besides the oft quoted “healthy mom, healthy baby” that came out of it,
I felt respected and cared for by the hospital staff. It definitely meets Moxie’s standards of a good birth.

September 14, 2007

I was sprung last night, earlier than we had thought (for reasons I'll get into) and later than I had wanted. I had planned to take advantage of the early discharge program and go home 24 hours post-delivery followed by a home visit with a nurse. Then we were in the hospital for about 30 minutes before C was actually born and hey! Remember how I was beta strep positive and needed antibiotics during labor? Yeah, that didn't happen. So that day they drew her blood and her white blood cell count was a little over their "okay zone." Antibiotics were started, a blood culture was drawn, and she was watched closely for signs of infection. At 36 hours the culture was still negative and we were doing well so the hospital pediatrician (our ped doesn't come to this hospital) released us with the understanding that there was a slim chance the culture would turn positive and we'd have to come back. He also wants us to see our ped on Monday.

There were only 4 hours between those 2 pictures so A's notes for the birthstory are hilariously short.* He wrote down 4 contractions starting at 1 am that were all 2-3 minutes apart. Then there are a couple lines of chicken scratch that quickly become less and less readable. That's it. Luckily, I wrote down a ton of stuff the next day so I'll be working on the official birthstory this weekend, I hope. It's always better if you write it down as soon as possible after the event. Otherwise, details get lost.

*Aren't newborns gross? That blue, cheesy baby had Apgars of 8 and 9. So if you're awaiting your first delivery, don't freak out when your baby is blue blue blue.

We are doing surprisingly well. I have to keep reminding myself that I am recovering from childbirth and I can't just start doing everything I usually do. Then stuff happens like taking a shower and I have to sit down afterward and I think, "Oh yeah. Gotta take it easy." I feel so much better than after delivering E and L, though, so it's a struggle to leash myself. I am not sure if the difference is due to twins/8 hour labor vs singleton/4 hour labor or just that subsequent deliveries are often easier to recover from. Or maybe it's because I was so freaking uncomfortable during the last month of pregnancy that a sore crotch is no biggie in comparison.

I am in love. C started out bruised and swollen and reminded me of E at birth. The swelling has receded and the bruising is faded and she is only a little yellow. She is gorgeous with an adorable nose and cheeks and a wealth of hair. I nursed her in the delivery room and she latched on well with minor encouragement. Since then she has been an awesome nurser. The difference between a pre-term and full-term baby is astounding. My confidence and previous experience play a part, I'm sure, but I am so thankful that she is nursing well and frequently and moving all that gross meconium out.

E and L are adjusting with the needy whininess that we anticipated. They say they love the baby and want to hold her frequently. They pet her head and try to give her toys to play with. And they continue with their normal 3-year-old demands. I put some pictures of their visit on my password site.

September 12, 2007

[Name deleted]! Born at exactly 2:30 this morning, C weighed in at 10 lb 1 oz and was 22 inches long. Linda's exact words were, "I gave birth to a toddler! She's a giant baby!"

But apparently, Linda's really good at giving birth to giant babies, because they arrived at the hospital at 2:00 and she was born exactly half an hour later. So...a fast labor then. Apparently, from the time of the first contractions until the time C was born was only 4 hours total. And pushing time was only 10 minutes. So that's pretty good. And she did it without any drugs. (Although, to make the less superhero-y people among us feel better, she did apparently go in asking for drugs. Before she realized that there was no time.)

C apparently has a bruised little face because she was born so fast, but is nursing well and sounds beautiful. (I got to hear her crying on the phone. Little newborn baby cries are adorable. Even when they come from giants.)

Linda says A is going to send pictures soon. I'll post them when he does.

September 10, 2007

Alas, I have had to unstar all the emails from those of you who guessed September 9 as this kid's birthday. After the (gross alert!) continual flood of mucus that I've witnessed this weekend, I thought you might have had something there. Ah well. Moving on. It'll happen soon enough and as much as I'd like to avoid September 11, that'll probably be the day. Isn't that how these things work?

I am not impatient, per se, but I am curious. I am curious about how this labor will go, I am curious about how it'll start, I'm curious about if this baby is a boy or a girl, how much s/he'll weigh, etc.

We almost went to the hospital last night, but not to have a baby. A's mom called us as they were traveling back from a family farm with E and L. Turns out that E succumbed to that bizarre childhood desire to stick a rock up your nose. I never did that and I've never understood the thinking: "Hey, here's something little and here's one of my body cavities! Let's see if they fit together!" They couldn't see the rock, but they could feel it. She was apparently in good spirits for someone with what we later discovered was a surprisingly large pebble shoved up a tiny nostril.

I called the weekend clinic that our pediatrician's office has (so convenient at 7:30 on a Sunday night) and was told that if we can't see it, we need to go to the emergency department for some special sucking device they have. We arranged to meet the in-laws there and then received a call just as we were walking out the door: Operation Remove Rock was successful! Thank you, Grandpa, he of dogged persistence.

A and I enjoyed a lovely 24 hours sans children. It is so weird to decide to leave our house and just put on my shoes, pick up my purse, and get in the car. No making sure everyone pees, no supervising shoe donning, no deciding if juice/snack/extra underwear are necessary, only my seatbelt to fasten . . . very odd. I am only responsible for myself. We saw Knocked Up as ironically promised and then went to my favorite tapas restaurant. Turns out that we are old and by the time we were done eating it was 11 pm and we came home and barely made it to bed before the snoring began. We slept in to the glorious hour of 9 am and then had the same unusual experience of not being responsible for our kids. We just walked into church and sat down~no trip to the nursery or anything!

Then we spent the rest of the day doing some intense nesting. I sorted through E and L's clothes, we cleaned both our rooms, A vacuumed the stairs for the first time in MONTHS (they were truly disgusting). I sorted through all the toys and dumped the junk and moved everything chokable downstairs. We brought down our pack-n-play with the bassinet and placed it next to all my cloth diapering supplies that are neatly arranged in cute baskets. We were a maelstrom of organization; it was beautiful. Of course, now our kids are home having had a great adventure at Grandma and Grandpa's and everything is well on its way to standard disarray. Isn't it amazing how messy kids can be?

September 08, 2007

Here's a great conversation topic: yesterday I was taking a shower and lost my mucus plug. (I will now describe it in more detail so if you're kinda skeevy about this stuff, look away.) It was disgusting. I deal with a lot of gross stuff as a mom and a nurse, but having chicken fat fall out of my crotch is definitely up there on the list. Imagine a booger the size of a walnut. Yeah, that's it. I definitely didn't lose the whole damn thing at once with E and L because that's a body fluid I wouldn't forget. I emailed A to tell him that he might want to make sure things are wrapped up at the office and his staff know what they're going to work on for a while because we might be having a baby this weekend. Then I did a little research and learned that you can actually regrow your mucus plug if you lose it too early and also it can be a week or more between the evacuation of the chicken-fat-snot-booger and the delivery of your child. So don't get all excited. I am a little excited because I have a few things on my side: second pregnancy, 39+ weeks along, 3 cm dilated, more pink mucus today. Plus, a lot of you guessed tomorrow as my delivery date so maybe you know something I don't?

Anyway, we're shipping the girls off to my in-laws tonight and going out to dinner and a movie. Is it ironic for me to go see Knocked Up? At any rate, it would be way too convenient to go into labor tonight while the girls were already under someone else's care. Plus, I have yet to feel one contraction. Last night I was having frequent BH contractions and at one point I thought to myself, "Hmmm . . . that one was maybe a little painful" and then I realized that if I'm thinking maybe a little painful then I am so not in labor.

On another note, E and L have each had another accident where they're in the bathroom and just haven't gotten their shorts down in time. It's like their timing is about 30 seconds off. I am attributing it to school and new baby fears. I'm sure it's hard to be 3 and not truly understand what's going on or how your life will change and be unable to express that. So we're following the same pattern as when we were potty training and calmly cleaning them up and reminding them to get to the bathroom sooner. I may go back to making them try to pee every couple hours. The last time E cried and looked humiliated. I felt really bad for her. If your kid(s) regressed with potty training, how long did it last?

September 05, 2007

There are some good things about being pregnant right now. There are so many awesome fruits and vegetables at the farmer's markets that constipation is nowhere on my radar. I have air conditioning and am not swollen at all. I put my wedding rings on the other night just to see. I can sit outside in a chair and read a book while my kids play independently. My stretch marks have not grown at all from my previous pregnancy. They're slightly darker on the ends, but not even close to the typical angry red. My husband gives me nightly massages. My in-laws are going to take my kids from Saturday night to Sunday evening, giving us time to go out to dinner and a movie. There is an excellent chance that I will be present for my kids' first day of preschool tomorrow, a day that I was sorely afraid of missing.

The pregnancy pages say things like "You may be feeling uncomfortable now" and that makes me giggle. I'm more excited about phrases like "All your baby's organs are ready to function outside the uterus now." That is very cool. Unless you have had a premature baby (and with no NICU time for my girls, I don't really know if I qualify), you might not see why the idea of a full-term baby is mind-blowing. But it is.

Yeah, so my pelvis cracks when I roll over in bed, my crotch aches after an hour of grocery shopping, and the baby actually causes me pain when s/he moves. So what?

Anyway, I am an awesome pregnant woman. I may have trouble getting pregnant and my body may not want to go into labor, but I rock at keeping a baby happy and healthy in my uterus. Everything is fine~weight, urine, BP, and I've gone from measuring 37 weeks last week to 39 weeks this week. Odd, but whatever. Maybe the baby shared all those double stuffed Oreos I've been eating and packed on the weight. My cervix is dilated to 3 cm, but not effaced and the baby is still at -3 station. So we can say decisively that I may or may not go into labor anytime soon. My midwife thinks if the baby drops, everything will start happening quickly. However, I have to have some real contractions to get that to happen and I reminded her again that I was dilated to 6 cm with E and L and not in labor. She looked mildly concerned but what can we do? We'll talk specifics if/when I get to 41 weeks.

I am feeling quite Zen right now. I know that risks of fetal death start increasing around 42 weeks, but as long as everyone is okay, I am quite willing to wait until 41 weeks before making any decisions about induction. Besides, we all know that things change at the drop of a hat. I have been (over)indulging in chocolate every single day so I'm content to hang out, waddle around, and wait.

September 04, 2007

Nope, I didn't go into labor on Labor Day. We had a really nice holiday weekend together as a family. I kept thinking, "This might be the last time we do ______ as a family of four!" (or a family of 7 if you include the animals). We did some things that it'll be more difficult to do with a newborn~go out to dinner and go to the beach, for example. I love how portable my kids are now. We went to the restaurant and colored on the placemats and played with some toys. They behaved really well and I only had to explain a couple of times how other people don't like to be stared at while they're eating. We went to the beach and played in the sand and water and then ate sandwiches. I know I'll only have one baby+accessories to lug around, but I am not looking forward to keeping a diaper bag packed with enough diapers, a change of clothes, burp clothes, toys . . . and all the other stuff. Do you think I'll haul around less stuff this time around? I mean, besides just needing supplies for one baby. Did you have a lighter diaper bag the second time around?

I am not yet impatient and quite proud of that fact. I tend to be impatient, part of the reason that working in the emergency department was such a great fit for me. I know that this month I will have a baby. I will not be pregnant in October. The end is nigh. Today I went grocery shopping and enjoyed the double takes and open stares at my belly. I have a short torso and it just sticks right out there. I like to make eye contact with these people and watch how uncomfortable they get when they're caught. It's deliciously mean of me.

There isn't much else to report. No new signs of labor except for the same pelvic pressure and the nearly constant BH contractions. My midwife appointment is tomorrow evening and I will post whatever news that brings.

August 29, 2007

I find it amusing that a lot of birth stories start with the mom-to-be waking up out-of-sorts and irritable. Once you make it past a certain point in pregnancy (and I'm sure that point varies with everyone), don't you wake up every morning out-of-sorts and irritable? Or is that just me?

I'm not sick anymore, and I think astute commenter Michele is right in that the eye drops were causing the problem. Apparently my sinuses had to get used to the prednisone because after 48 hours all I have is a little excess nasty-tasting drainage after I use the drops (gross, I know).

My kids are 3. They are acting like normal 3-year-olds and I can't stand it. L shoves a toy camera in my face and demands that I smile so she can take my picture. I eke out a grimace and she explodes in a massive whine of DON'T SMILE LIKE THAT! NOT LIKE THAT! that persists no matter how I mold my face. E is more subtle and just tortures her poor sister and then throws out an I'm Sorry and a I Love You, Mama, And I Love The Baby, Too like that'll make everything better. Lucy slinks around the house, trying to avoid my wrath, which just serves to irritate me further. When E and L read this somewhere down the line, I want to emphasize to them that when I think of them, I love them so fiercely that my heart explodes in my chest. It's this end-stage pregnancy combined with their day-to-day needs that make me want to run away and work at a winery in California. Seriously, how many times do I have to say, "I can't get you a drink when I'm driving. You'll have to wait until we get home" or "I can't hear you when you're whining. Do you want to try asking again?" Apparently a million isn't good enough.

I have to say that I LOVE the retroactive respect we're getting from everyone now that more of our friends and family are
having babies. I keep hearing, "How did you give birth to TWO?!" and "How did
you breastfeed TWO?!" and "How did you take care of TWO?!" It's awesome. I will now sit back and bask in my awesomeness while all the moms of triplets and more sigh and roll their eyes.

I wonder how I'm going to deliver this baby. I wasn't in very good shape when I got pregnant~running after 2 kids, shopping for Oreos, and a physically active job was my workout regimen. Now a trip to the park~complete with bench sitting, 10 minutes of pushing my kids on the swings, and the occasional help with balance beam-type toys~completely exhausts me. I hope the promised adrenaline packs a wallop.

I was watching E and L play together at the park this morning and had one of those overwhelming feelings of joy. I ventured to think to myself, I think I am healed from infertility. Last night I heard about a couple who got pregnant the first month of trying and I didn't feel any twinge of jealousy. How can I be jealous? Look at what I've got. I can't wish for that to be me anymore. If it were me, I wouldn't have these kids in this time with these friends. I have two incredible mom friends with kids who are E and L's age. By some miracle, I have a third child on the way and two more incredible mom friends with kids born this summer. I don't know how or why it all worked out this way, but I have amazing support in my life in just the right way at just the right time. I am being given exactly what I need when I need it.

We are so close to finishing our basement that I'm crossing my legs to keep this baby in for another week or so. (Sorry, I didn't take before pictures. You can mentally put dirty black tile and '70s paneling up there if you'd like.) The painting is done and the carpet is installed. A will buy the shelving material this weekend and those will be built next week. I can start sorting through toys and sentencing small pieces to the basement to make room for a swing and pack-n-play on the main floor. The girls are having such fun playing down there with only our used couches from our first apartment that I almost hate to move stuff down there. Almost. I doubt I'll get everything organized and pictures hung/walls decorated before this baby, but the bulk of the work is done and it's a relief.

I saw my midwife tonight; I'm 38 weeks tomorrow (for comparison: additional picture of me at 34 weeks with twins). I declined the cervical check to avoid discouragement. She doesn't usually do them as a rule, but she said I could ask anytime. I told her that if I am here next Wednesday at 39 weeks, I will probably want one since Thursday is a big day (first day of preschool! Pedicure!) and I'll want to know if anything is happening. Not that I can do anything if something is happening, but it's always fun to worry. Plus, a huge chunk of my job deals with numbers and trends and my urge to gather more information is difficult to squelch.

Anyway, I'm now beta strep positive, a change from when I was pregnant with L and E. That means antibiotics every 4 hours throughout labor. It also means I'm going to be less cavalier about getting to the hospital if my water breaks. Newborn sepsis is not something I'm going to mess around with. Hopefully, I can still do the majority of my laboring at home and my water won't break until late. I lost 3 lbs (in a week!) and am still measuring 37 weeks (same as last week) so the baby might be moving down a bit.

For the record, nothing is really happening. Lots of BH contractions, occasionally strong and more uncomfortable. No painful contractions, no (possibly embarrassing and/or inconvenient) water breaking, no spurt of energy, maybe a little pelvic pressure, but nothing impressive. In the back of my mind, I remember that I was measuring 45 weeks pregnant, had 12 lbs of baby inside me, and was dilated to 6 cm without actually being in labor. Maybe my body just doesn't know how to do it. Maybe I'll still be pregnant 2 weeks post-my due date and I'm just borrowing trouble, aren't I? I'll shut up now. You talk. How did you know that you were in labor? Any good labor/delivery stories? Amuse me, peasants.

August 27, 2007

Last Monday I woke up with a bloodshot and swollen left eye, looking for all the world like I took a punch without the pleasure of a night at the bar. I watched it grow worse over the next few days and finally saw my eye doctor's partner on Thursday. I liked him immediately because he told me my girls (who had spent over an hour waiting in a decidedly child un-friendly waiting room) were beautiful, high-fived them, and told me longingly that he had 3 boys and had always wished for a girl. He also just laughed when my kids asked questions through the whole exam and then got fingerprints on the mirrors. Anyway, I have something-itis and am on prednisone eye drops for the next 2 months. Hopefully, this is just a one time thing. He did warn me that if comes back, they'll start testing me for various autoimmune diseases. That would really suck so I am hoping it's a fluke thing.

I just started looking like a normal person on Friday and then my sinuses stopped working and the snot build-up is overwhelming. My headache is not going away because you know what? I don't care what anyone says: Tylenol works for fevers, but cannot touch a headache. Despite what my mom (she of the "One Tylenol cures my headache since I am such a delicate flower" group) told me, it's just not true. When your lungs are already half their normal size, it is disconcerting to suddenly lose a large part of your airway. The shortness-of-breath feeling grows out of proportion.

I have instructed this kid that if s/he wants to keep moving the way s/he is, it's time to move out. I took a video of my belly moving after a friend (who has been through pregnancy) was shocked at the sight. Even A says it looks fake. I tried to upload it to a video sharing site, but after I shrunk it to the mandatory size, it didn't look right. So the only way you can see the video is to drop by my house. When you come, could you bring some chicken soup? And we're low on milk.